


The Panic Button

by Agapanthus_Enthusiast



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 13:23:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11990697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agapanthus_Enthusiast/pseuds/Agapanthus_Enthusiast
Summary: It turns out that sneaking out of New Beijing Palace is incredibly (worryingly) easy, even for an Empress, and if Cinder would just take her panic button with her on her city visits, Kai would feel a lot better. Kaider oneshot set several years post-Winter.





	The Panic Button

The last time Empress Selene Channary Jannali Blackburn of the Eastern Commonwealth snuck out of New Beijing Palace without any kind of security detail was less than a month after her wedding.

This was something she’d been doing with some regularity since she’d moved to New Beijing, and it was so easy she was starting to get concerned about the state of the palace’s security. She hadn’t had an ID chip re-implanted since cutting hers out—there was no need for one on Luna, and she’d just never gotten around to it since moving back to Earth, because everyone in the palace knew her and it took her about five seconds to manually override a security checkpoint or android. So all it took for her to slip out of the gates undetected was an excuse (usually feminine-emergency-related) and a hoodie, and she would return after a few hours with sticky buns and a smug smile.

But that last time, two things happened: She got careless, and it rained. Iko noticed the sticky buns and the soaked hoodie, and when she counted backwards, deduced that it had been “that time of the month” three times this month alone, and realized what Cinder had done, her eyes turned a sickly pale green with horror.

“What if one of the old Lunar families saw their chance and had you kidnapped and mailed your limbs back to Kai until he signed away the entire Commonwealth to them?” she wailed, pacing back and forth in Cinder and Kai’s living room, as Cinder frantically tried to shush her. “And then forced you to annul your marriage with Kai and marry one of them instead so they could instate an intergalactic dictatorship? WHAT THEN, CINDER?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Cinder said weakly, wondering if the ringing in her ears was permanent. “Kinney would never let that happen. Er, if he was there when it was about to happen.”

Iko nodded pensively. “Fair point.”

It took Iko nearly the entire rest of the day to compose a satisfactorily scalding lecture on the importance of keeping tabs on the most important woman in the Commonwealth, and she delivered it to Kinney right before dinner.

“I thought you were the most important woman in the Commonwealth,” Kinney said when she was finished. “Isn’t that what you always remind me when you’re, y’know, distracting me from my sworn duties to the Empress?”

He winked, and Iko punched him as her eyes flushed hot pink.

And then Kinney told Kai, and that night, Kai laughed, kissed Cinder’s temple, and said that he didn’t care what she did or where she went as long as she had used her glamour to conceal herself. Because that’s what she’d done, right?

“Um,” said Cinder, who hadn’t turned off her bioelectricity suppressor since she’d moved back to Earth, “not exactly.”

Kai frowned at her.

“But you had a gun?”

“Uh.”

He sat up in bed, the better to frown at her more emphatically. “Darts loaded in your finger?”

“Well…”

“Or the panic button?”

“What panic button? Do you have a panic button?”

“Yeah, and so do you. I gave it to you, like, three years ago, when you first moved in,” Kai said, sounding hurt. “It’s shaped like a little cyborg foot, with a red button that says ‘PANIC’ on top. Press it and it broadcasts a distress signal with your location to our security team.”

“Oh, that’s what that was?” Cinder said, squinting vaguely into the distance. “The door in my workshop slams, so I use it to hold it open.”

“I had it custom-made!”

Cinder favored him with what she hoped was an endearing smile. “It’s the most adorable custom-made doorstop I’ve ever owned. And it’ll really come in handy if I panic while adjusting the stabilization thrusters on a hover.”

Kai made a guttural noise of deepest frustration. “Tell me you at least made some attempt at disguising yourself.”

“Yes!” Cinder said triumphantly. “Yes, an attempt was definitely made.”

“A hoodie doesn’t count.”

“They counted when you used them to sneak out of the palace.”

“I never snuck anywhere!” Kai said. “My security team always knew exactly where I was. They still do, because I’m a law-abiding citizen who uses an ID chip and doesn’t have to say ‘charge it to the palace’ and then sign a pile of invoices whenever I go shopping. Incidentally, how did you buy those sticky buns without giving away your identity?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “Um…”

Kai’s nostrils flared. “Stars above, Cinder, you blew your cover? You could’ve been kidnapped, or killed, or crushed in a tsunami of lovesick teenage boys, or—”

“It was only Chang Sunto,” she said defensively. “It’s not like I jumped onto a table and screamed ‘IT IS I, THE WHOLLY UNARMED EMPRESS SELENE! COME GET ME, ARISTOCRATIC ASSASSINS!’”

“I didn’t say you did, but—”

“And another thing,” Cinder said, hoisting herself onto her elbows, “have you and Kinney and Iko all forgotten the part where I eluded authorities both Earthen and Lunar, led a revolution, and singlehandedly overthrew a narcissistic despot with nothing but my bare hands and a wrench?”

“Well, that’s just blatantly not true.”

“Also, I’m pretty sure the lovesick-teenager-tsunami is a problem only teen prince heartthrobs ever had to face, namely you, not me. Nothing like that happened any of the other times I—”

Cinder broke off mid-sentence as Kai let out a strangled choking noise that would have better suited a python with indigestion. “Other times? What other times?”

“I…listen, like I said, nothing ever happened—”

“How many times?”

“It’s not really a big deal—”

“How. Many. Times?”

This commenced a brief but intense glaring contest, one which Cinder lost in spite of the fact that her visual interface told her that technically, she could keep her eyes open indefinitely with only minor discomfort. “I don’t know. A lot. Pretty much since the first week I lived here.”

Kai shook his head. “That’s it. We’re getting you a leash. A kid leash, on one of those little backpacks shaped like monkeys, and you will wear it every day to remind you of your shame.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“‘The Wandering Toddler Empress,’ they’ll call you. You won’t be remembered as dignified, but you’ll outlive us all.”

“I can take care of myself, Kai.”

“I know you can, but would it kill you to take Kinney with you the next time you have a yen for sticky buns? That is his job, you know.”

“I like alone-time,” Cinder said, glaring at him. “I miss alone-time. Ever since the coronation, I’ve craved alone-time.”

Kai’s face fell. “It’s not fair that you had to assume another crown so soon after giving one up. I understand that,” he said, his voice now absent of any teasing.

“I didn’t mean this coronation,” Cinder said, her tone softening. “I meant the first one. This one was a breeze, comparatively.”

Kai nodded, but he still looked troubled. “And I know I’m an adjustment. I mean, being an ex-royal Lunar ambassador living with your fiancé is sort of different from being, you know, the Empress, and having to spend basically all your time with me,” he said, picking at a crane embroidered on a pillowcase.

“It’s not you,” Cinder protested. An orange light flashed in the corner of her vision, and she sighed. “Well, it’s not all you. And it’s not your fault. It’s just…on Luna, there was no way I could ever be alone or walk around unnoticed, not since I stopped using my glamour for good, and I sort of thought I’d get a break from that here, but I’m still on every feed in my retinal display, and there’s always someone around, always, even if it’s just you or Konn or Kinney or Iko. And I love you, I do, and I love being here, but sometimes I miss being an anonymous mechanic who could go anywhere.”

She clamped her mouth shut and hoped that Kai wasn’t as startled by how much she’d blurted out as she was.

“I get that,” Kai said. “I mean, not that I got to be anonymous very often. But I’d forgotten how exhausting it is to not even have the option.”

“But I do have the option,” Cinder said stubbornly. “Like I did. Today.”

Kai let out a gusty sigh. “Just as many people on this planet would love to see you dead as they did on the last one.”

“Luna’s not a planet.”

“Irrelevant. Don’t change the subject.” Kai narrowed his eyes at Cinder. “I think you’re being more reckless here because New Beijing was your home for so long. You don’t feel like you need to be careful the way you did on Luna.”

“I’m not being reckless,” Cinder said. “I just, you know, need a little breathing room sometimes. It was a few sticky buns. I don’t get why it’s such a big deal.”

“You’re not just a regular citizen who can fade into the crowd. You haven’t been in years. And if you got kidnapped or assaulted or assassinated….” Kai tilted his head, his brow furrowed as he studied her face. “The Commonwealth needs you. I need you. And I wish you’d make a bigger effort to not give anyone else a chance to stab you in the organic part of your heart.”

Cinder melted. She couldn’t resist his puppy-eyes, and she knew he knew it. She also knew when she was beaten. “I really can take care of myself.”

“I know, but—”

“But if it makes you feel better, I will get a blasted ID chip first thing tomorrow morning.”

Kai brightened. “Really?”

“Yes,” Cinder said, with a sigh of resignation. “It has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been manually overriding each of the roughly ten million security scanners between here and the kitchens every time I’ve wanted a midnight snack for the last three years, and it’s getting really old.”

“Of course,” Kai said, deadpan. “I’m sure that didn’t factor into your decision in the least.”

Cinder smiled. “And I’ll take the panic button with me the next time I want some alone-time.”

Kai blinked at her, then cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

“But just so you know,” he said a little breathlessly when they broke apart, resting his forehead against hers, “if you do get kidnapped and you’re forced to marry a Lunar aristocrat who keeps mailing me your limbs, I reserve the right to shoot you on your wedding day and kidnap you back. Then we’d finally be even.”

Cinder’s lips twitched. “I knew Iko had gotten to you.”

Kai sank back down onto his pillows. “If she didn’t love being your chief of staff so much, I honestly think she’d make a killing writing net-dramas.”

“Don’t tell her that,” Cinder said. “She’ll quit and never look back.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked, suddenly serious again. “To quit all of this, and live out the rest of your days in happy anonymity?”

She studied him, his mouth, his perfect nose, his absurdly long lashes and floppy hair, still damp from the shower. “Would that entail my having to quit being your wife?”

“Probably.”

“Then no. Not for all the sticky buns in the world.”

Kai smiled at her, his dark eyes crinkling to reveal those little lines from all the chuckles he diplomatically suppressed during lunches and banquets and balls and meetings with people who had no idea how absurd they were. No one knew their emperor was dying of laughter on the inside, but Cinder did. She always did. (And they were at the point where they flat-out couldn’t risk making eye contact at any official functions for fear of offending the heads of countless significant families.) Those little eye crinkles were one of the things she loved most about Kai’s face, primarily because she was the only one who ever got close enough to see them, the only one who knew exactly where each line came from.

“You know, I’d find a way to be with you even if you abdicated the throne to be a latrine technician in the regolith mines,” Kai said, breaking Cinder’s eye-crinkle reverie.

“Same,” she said, flopping back down onto her side to face him.

“And if you need to be a regular hoodied citizen of New Beijing every once in a while, I get it. Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid again.”

“I promise,” she said, ignoring the orange light that flashed in the corner of her eye as Kai pulled her into his arms, the room quiet except for the raindrops pattering on the windows.

Royalty or not, she was fairly certain that there was a great deal of stupid in store for her. Starting with being stupid in love with a boy who, though slightly overprotective, was still stupid amounts of perfect.


End file.
